sii Agua sí

Since 2014, FLACC has provided a platform of visibility and inclusivity for over 60 resistant, queer, indigenous, and hybrid choreographers of the Latinx diaspora who cross cultural, physical, and aesthetic borders of tradition to abstraction. To adapt to the obstacles of Covid 19, our 9th annual Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers will host several artists from different disciplines to support our curatorial theme "sii agua sí" in our first outdoor festival along the Mission Creek/18th Street Corridor in Yelamu.

FLACC 2022: sii agua sí (water water yes) - "sii" is the Ohlone word for "water." In memory of the blocked and soil-filled waterways that once flowed in this region and in honor of the 5700 local Indigenous ancestors buried in the cemetery at the Mission Dolores, FLACC is centralizing the voices and themes of the land-based site in collaboration and solidarity with local Ohlone leaders, SF Parks, Dance Mission Theater, American Indian Cultural District and other community partners. Through community rituals, live performance installations and historical talks, sii agua si is symbolically re-filling the site with water (sii) to bring awareness and healing to a painful history of cultural genocide and ecocide that seeps beneath the streets of the Mission District.

With a temporary mural by local artists to guide the audience in the daytime and installing multiple video projections of water to visually define performance and ritual spaces at night, the festival will take place within a watery landscape. Water blessings, land acknowledgements, traditional and contemporary dances, water altars in honor of the current water crisis, a prayer-walk, live musical collaborations, and will take place in various sites along the path to honor our human and non-human ancestors.

By re-imagining the natural creeks, lagoons and waterways in sii agua sí, FLACC honors the former natural landscape and the native Ramaytush Yelamu ancestors who fell victim to ecocide and cultural genocide due to industrialism and colonization. FLACC acknowledges the attempted extermination of Ohlone Ramaytush, as well as Miwok, Pomo, Mutsun, Chochenyo, Lisjan, Rumsen, Muwekma and the surrounding indigenous people who were brought to this Ramaytush Yelamu area, and buried in the Mission Dolores 2 blocks away from the former village, Chutchui, of the Ramaytush Ohlone people of Yelamu. This festival is an opportunity for their descendants to share practices that promise to restore waterways and honor their ancestors. Through a long-term relationship building process, FLACC hopes to bring allies of religious, cultural and educational institutions within the neighborhood into a space of action and solidarity among Indigenous landback and water rights movements. The festival aims to grow capacity within contemporary Latinx arts communities to support Indigenous led healing.

The Laguna Dolores was near the Misión Dolores (formally known as Mission San Francisco de Asis), and Mission creek flowed on the 18th street side of Dolores Park in front of Mission High School. The 18th Street closure is the the area where the Chutchui Village once thrived.

sii agua sí Program ORDER

Indigenous-Led Prayer Walk: 2pm-3pm
(In honor of the lost Waterways of Yelamu + the 5,700 native ancestors buried at the Mission Dolores.)

sii agua sí street closure (decolonizing 18th St. between Church St. and Dolores St.)

Opening Ceremony at the Water Altar: 3pm

Gregg Castro (Ramaytush Ohlone)
Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Ohlone Mutsun Culture Bearer)
Corrina Gould (Pending)
Hummaya Singers and Dancers (The Costanoan Rumsen Carmel Tribe)

Youth Performances 4:30pm
Intertribal Friendship House- Youth Ensemble
Mission High School Youth
Red Lightning Woman Power

Altar Artists:
Mara Lea Brown
Bea Laurel
FLACC/ sii agua sí Team

Interactive Chalk Mural Project: 1pm-5pm
Adrian Arias (Peru/US)
Pancho Pescador (Chile/US)
Cece Caprio (Pilipina)

The Sound of Water: 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm
5 minutes of embodied land acknowledgement every hour on the hour
Concept by Liz Duran Boubion, Violeta Luna and Jesús Cortes

Taco Truck! Tonayense: 3-7pm

Childrens Tent: 4-6pm
Arts and Crafts hosted by the American Indian Cultural Center

Tobacco Prayer Ties: 5-7pm
Nizhoni Ellenwood(Nii Mii Puu/Nez Perce & Apache)

****DJ Dance Set! Ras K’dee (Dry Creek Pomo): 5pm****
Come and dance to some amazing beats!

Mayan Yucatan Dance Class + Demonstration! 5:30pm
Asociación Mayab-Maya Yucateco

****Kids Parade for the Waterways! 6pm****
Children of all ages leading Salmon Run (Fishies and instruments provided)
Hosted by the American Indian Cultural Center and Piñata Dance Collective

Evening Program FLACC Performances/Ohlone Culture Shares/Film 6:30-9:30:
Carmen Roman(Peru/US)
Juliana Mendonca (Venezuela/US)
Violeta Luna(MX/US)
Jesus Cortés (MX/US)
Joel Pomerantz (Waterways Historian)
Piñata Dance Collective/Liz Duran Boubion(US/MX):
Carmina Marquez, Laila Shabazz, Valerie Mendez, Bae Laurel
FILM: Jonathan Trudeau-Standing Rock/Dance Mission Theater
Kanyon Sayers Roods (Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash)
Arenas Dance Company (Cuba/US)
Xochipilli Dance Company/Hector-Jaime Rodriguez(MX/US)
Gregg Castro (t'rowt'raahl Salinan / rumsien & ramaytush Ohlone)
Large Scale Video Projection / Memorial: 5,700 Ancestors (Ben Wood)

AFTER PARTY Ras K’Dee Dance Set! 9:15pm-10pm

Indigenous-led Prayer Walk (opening by Gregg Castro(Ramaytush Ohlone): 2pm-3pm.

MEET IN FRONT OF MISSION DOLORES AT 1:45
As part of sii agua sí, the pre-festival prayer walk, led by local Ohlone and California Native leaders will begin at 2pm in front of the Mission Dolores where an unmarked burial site of 5,700 native ancestors is known to be. The prayers, water blessings and songs leading down to 18th Street for the opening of the festival is meant to bring truth and healing to the present-day descendants of the tribes and ancestors who fell victim to the role of the California Mission system during early colonization. A large scale video projection of the 110 tribes represented in the baptismal records, will culminate in the evening at 8:30pm on 18th st. All are welcome to join this reverent act of solidarity and peace.

Mural by Cece Carpio

Interactive Mural Project! Cece Carpio, Adrian Arias and Pancho Pescador: 1pm-5pm

REMEMBERING WATER IN YELAMU. Everyone's invited to paint with award winning Bay Area Muralists, Artivists and Visionaries: Cece Carpio, Adrian Arias and Pancho Pescador to re-create a watery landscape on 18th street between Church and Dolores on Oct. 1.

There will be tempura paint and brushes for everyone to use in support of the vision of the artists. This part of sii agua sí is a visual land acknowledgement bringing awareness to Pre-Colonial Waterways and Indigenous Ancestral Burial Sites in the Mission District, connecting the painful history of genocide and ecocide to today's current water crisis.

RAS K'DEE (DRY CREEK POMO) 2 SETS! 5PM + 9:15PM THE MUCH NEEDED AFTER PARTY

Support sii agua sí

In addition to learning about and practicing local indigenous protocol as a way to repair harm done by the homogenizing effects of the concept of Latinidad and as a way of honoring the many indigeneities embodied in the concept, we strive to offer financial support to the leaders and groups who share their traditional knowledge as a practice of protecting land and water. Help us support their work.

ARTISTS & CULTURE BEARERS BIOS

Gregg Castro [t'rowt'raahl Salinan/rumsien-ramaytush Ohlone], has been involved in preservation of his cultural heritage for nearly three decades, for both his late Mother’s rumsien Ohlone heritage, and on his late Father’s side, the since ended ‘Salinan Nation Tribal Council’ (serving two terms as Tribal Chair) and currently the non-profit organization, Salinan T’rowt’raahl. Gregg is a member of the Society for California Archaeology (SCA). Gregg is a Co-Facilitator for the annual California Indian Conference, a 30+ year gathering about California Indigenous heritage. Gregg is a writer and activist within the California indigenous community, on issues regarding cultural preservation, protection, education and traditional practices. Gregg is the Culture Director of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, the organization representing the heritage of the people indigenous to "Yelamu", San Francisco.

Photo Credit: Fernando Gallegos

Kanyon Sayers-Roods belongs to the Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash Tribes; she also goes by her given Native name, “Coyote Woman”. She is the CEO of Kanyon Konsulting LLC a consultation firm dedicated to bridging the gap between indigenous and contemporary value systems. Coyote Woman is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony. Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media.

Hummaya Singers and Dancers/ photo credit: Alex Paz

Hummaya Singers and Dancers- The Costanoan Rumsen Carmel Tribe is a band of California Mission Indians with over 2,000 tribal members relocated to Southern California. Emerging to reclaim their cultural practice, language, and ancestral lands to the north, affirming continued existence, concern for the environment and the desire for unity amongst all peoples. Today, the tribe continues to highlight living in reciprocity with our Mother Earth through song and dance honoring their ancestral heritage as the Hummaya (hummingbird) Singers and Dancers. Ensuring spiritual and cultural values for generations to come.

Ras K’dee from Sonoma County, California, is a Native California Pomo/African musician, community educator, and renowned lyricist, producer, & lead vocalist/keyboardist for Bay Area-based live world hip-hop ensemble, Audiopharmacy. For K’dee, his musical inspiration is deeply rooted from his experience as a cultural artist. Translating artistically through world music, hip-hop, rhymes and soulful melodies, K’dee invokes the songs and dances from traditional ceremonies of his native people, and tells stories of resistance, healing, community & empowerment that can be understood and felt universally by all people. He has been compared to the likes of Gil Scott Heron, and Marvin Gaye. Ras K’dee’s musical repertoire includes “Street Prison” (2005), which was awarded by East Bay Express as Best Local Album of The Year in 2006, co-production on Audiopharmacy's album, “U Forgot About Us” (2009), and producing his first solo-project, “Cloudwriter” (2011), Audiopharmacy’s State of the Heart (2014) and Black Native (2016).

Red Lightning Woman Power (RLWP) began in 2018 bringing Native women together to sing, share, and provide a safe place for connection and advocacy. The Women of Red Lightning Woman Power group are from the San Francisco and Oakland Bay Area, they meet bi-monthly online, coming together to find support and healing. RLWP group has transformed into leadership and advocacy around important issues such as Missing Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), indigneous women’s rights and visibility, climate and environmental issues, and many local Bay Area Native matters. They sing and share their stories throughout the Bay Area at Native community events and organizations as well as online through different platforms. RLWP share their stories through empowering one another and others, as well as De-colonizing and Re-claiming indigeneity. They sing environmental songs to heal the water, the earth, women, and the people. The facilitators of RLWP, Aurora Mamea, Nizhoni Ellenwood, and April Marshall also began Red Lightning Power-Young Women's Group to give a meeting space for young women up to the age of 17, to learn songs and share in a safe environment with other fellow youth.

Nizhoni Ellenwood is NiMiiPuu-Nez Perce, Apache, and Italian, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She will be teaching folks who come to sii agua sí how to create tobacco prayer ties. Nizhoni will be singing with Red Lightning Woman Power, dancing Northern Traditional Style with IFH dance group, and presenting a medicine booth where people can learn more about traditional medicines.
She is a performing artist, dancer, singer, visual artist, educator and facilitator for local groups and organizations. She has been facilitating and hosting the Red Lightning Woman Power group sessions along with Aurora Mamea for the past two years, and has been singing with different members from the group for over 10 years. Nizhoni also co-created the Indigenous Arts Coalition with artists from the San Francisco Art Institute and throughout the country creating gallery shows and arts events. Working closely with the Intertribal Friendship House (IFH) of Oakland and its members, Nizhoni loves their traditional medicine garden and has led workshops caring for medicines there as well as working with promoting the continuation of traditional medicine practices. She has also been working with American Indian Cancer Foundation (AICF) members in keeping traditional tobacco sacred.

Liz Duran Boubion, MFA, RSMT is a second generation Chicana and queer choreographer. She is the lead curator of sii agua sí, the artistic director of the Piñata Dance Collective founded in 2011 and founding director of Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers(FLACC) since 2014. FLACC is working to build community and professional relationships among the choreographers with year-round programming, master classes, artist-to artist symposia and audience discourse. Ms. Boubion has held 7 choreographers residencies in the US, Mexico and Germany and is an associate teacher of the Tamalpa Institute. She completed her BA in Dance from CSU Long Beach in 2000 and her MFA in Creative Inquiry from California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco in 2011. Boubion has been published in InDance Magazine, Stance on Dance, Conscious Dancer Magazine, Life as a Modern Dancer and is registered with the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA).

Site Activation Series: A part of FLACC 2022: sii agua sí...FLACC Dancers meet at Dolores Park, San Francisco, Ca. for weekly site activations in preparation for the Oct. 1 street closure sii agua sí. sii=water in Ramaytush Ohlone.

Featured in video: Artistic Director: Liz Duran Boubion,
Dancers: Carmina Márquez, Laila Shabazz, Bay Laurell

This first gathering included one of FLACC's featured artists of sii agua sí 2022:
Hector A. Jaime Rodriguez (Xochipilli Dance).

Videography: Justin Hetrick

Isabel Estrada Jamison by LexMex

Founded and directed by Ms Susana Arenas Pedroso, Arenas Dance Company’s mission is to preserve and promote the rich and diverse Cuban folkloric and popular (i.e. social) dance traditions – from the percussive Arará to the sensual Rumba to the energetic Palo – making it accessible to wide audiences via performances and classes. Born from a commitment to educate and enrich the communities in which Ms. Pedroso lives, Arenas Dance Company inspires the hearts and minds of its audiences in the way it brings the history of Cuban dance and musical culture to life.

Violeta Luna (SF)(Actress / Performance Artist / Activist): Born in Mexico City, Luna obtained her graduate degree in Acting from the Centro Universitario de Teatro (CUT – UNAM), and La Casa del Teatro. Her work activates the relationship between theatre, performance art and community engagement. Working within a multidimensional space that allows for the crossing of aesthetic and conceptual borders, Luna uses her body as a territory to question and comment on social and political phenomena. She has performed and taught workshops throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as in Rwanda, Egypt, New Zealand, Japan, Canada and USA. While primarily working as a solo performer, she is also an associate artist of the San Francisco-based performance collectives La Pocha Nostra and Secos & Mojados.

Xochipilli Dance Company founded by Héctor-Jaime Rodriguez, is based in the Bay Area representing the Queer and Latinx communitty to
spark curiosity for dance, creativity, art, history, and culture. Our mission is to showcase how important
dance is to our past, present, and future of shared history. We want to inspire everyone to explore
movement and recognize that we are all dancers. We like to focus on relating on a personal, physical,
spiritual, and philosophical level. We desire to facilitate a space for inner and outer reflection. We want to
use the language of movement to construct an environment that showcases how we are intertwined with
each other.

Cunamacué was founded in 2010 by Carmen Román in Oakland, California with the purpose of bringing visibility to the presence and cultural knowledge of the African descendant population in Peru. The company promotes the continuity of Afro-Peruvian culture, representing it not as a point in time, but as a living, vibrant and evolving form whose music and dance can be used as a means of contemporary expression.
The name Cunamacué is a reminder that the work we do is based on ancestral roots, one to be left to future generations. The word Macué is representative of the ancestors; it is a stream in Mozambique, one of the places from which Africans were uprooted and taken to Perú. Cuna is the Spanish word for crib, representing future generations.

Jesús "JACOH" Cortés, returning to FLACC for the 2nd time, began his training in Mexican folk dance when he was 6 years old under the direction of his great uncle Juan Natoli. In 2000, he started dancing with Ballet Folklórico de Mexico de Amalia Hernandez in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Where He was a soloist in the role of The Deer Dance “La Danza Del Venado” He has toured Mexico, Europe and the US. Currently, he lives in San Francisco, He is Founder and Artistic Director of Cuicacalli Escuela de Danza y Compañía, He is as well the lead teacher and choreographer for Cuicacalli's Ballet Folklórico and Contemporary Dance program. In addition he works as an artist in residence with the SFUSD and Brava Theater. CUICACALLI “House of Culture" is an international, cross-cultural, dance-arts educational institution.

Juliana Mendonca is a Venezuelan Contemporary Dance Performer, Choreographer and Teacher. She is an innovative bodyworker influenced by Latin traditional Dances, Butoh, Contact Improvisation and Physical Theater. Throughout her career she has developed a unique language with which she can express and create powerful art and healing. She has dedicated many years to creating projects and performances inspired by water: Raíz de Agua, La Naciente, Drop & Drought, Liquidanza and Sono Somatic, water has represented a very important element to understand herself. She currently directs her own proposal for relaxation and dance practice in the water, Liquidanza.

Using acrylic, ink, aerosol, and installations, Cece Carpio tells stories of immigration, ancestry, collective movements, and our stories of resilience. She documents evolving traditions by combining folkloric forms, bold portraits, and natural elements with urban art techniques.

Living and working in the Bay Area, she is inspired by the cultural potency of communities of color and the prominent history of social movements that have become influential expressions for the rest of the world. The unique and complex narratives in the Bay have been at the forefront of creativity invigorating popular culture and allowing communities to imagine and create another world possible. She paints everyday people who have been invincible to share their thriving presence and to show the dignity and power of their existence. As a visual storyteller, Cece paints to lift up her communities, share their stories and provoke the power of their imagination.

Cece has produced and exhibited work throughout the globe. She has been awarded the Rockwood Institute Fellowship, NYFA Immigrant Artist Fellowship, a teaching residency at Café R.E.D & La Botica Espacio Cultural at Xela, Guatemala, an artist residency with KulArts at SOMA and Asian Art Museum in SF, and a recent honoree with YBCA 100 2020. She has been commissioned by the City of Oakland, YBCA, UC Berkeley, and OMCA. She served as a Public Art Advisor for the City of Oakland and worked as the Galleries Manager for the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Adrian Arias (American, born in Peru, 1961)
Is a visual artist, poet, performer, curator, activist, and cultural promoter, who brings together multidisciplinary artists to engage in community projects with messages of social justice, racial equality, climate change, peace, beauty, health, and hope in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Arias is one of the founders and creators of MAPP (Mission Arts Performance Project) and creator of festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area such as: VideoFest, Luna Negra, and ILLUSION shows in San Francisco.
Adrian uses his dreams as creative initiatives, which he makes come true in performances and community projects, such as his multimedia shows called DREAMS, that have been presented at Fort Mason, The Red Poppy Art House, ODC Theater and Dance Mission as part of FLACC (Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers), and most currently Tarot in Pandemic & Revolution, where 24 visual artists and 43 poets from the SF Bay Area have participated.

Pancho Pescador was born in Santiago de Chile in 1972. Pancho is a self-taught visual artist, muralist, music lover and a visual activist. He combines these disciplines to stir things up and to activate critical and imaginative thinking. Life brought him to Oakland, CA where he lives, creates and shows his visual guerrillas. Pancho Pescador belongs to a collective of muralists and street art called Community Rejuvenation Project (CRP) based in Oakland.

Ben Wood is a public video artist based in San Francisco. In his work with large-scale projection and installations, he combines media art with historical subject matter. He is especially devoted to using contemporary media to animate public spaces with images of their unrecognized history, and exposing how histories of marginalized and often forgotten communities may be visually reintroduced into the physical landscape of the present. Wood has explored a re-animation of history, by reviving historic murals in order to spark dynamic conversation about relevant contemporary questions and issues. Wood is known for large-scale displays on Coit Tower, Haas-Lilienthal House, Temple Emanuel, Saint Ignatius Church, within Mission Dolores, and other San Francisco landmarks. Wood has a BFA in Digital Media from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Master in Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Photo: Ben Wood's Thanksgiving projection commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969 by native activists.

Joel Pomerantz- Seep City Historian. Joel Pomerantz dances at the intersection of nature education, community history and cartographic art. Though not a dancer, he's been designing and leading local explorations for about two decades. San Francisco history is wrongly thought to be about quirky characters or quaint events, but Joel’s award-winning Thinkwalks and publications are entirely different. They’re based on original, thorough, rigorous research that is of particular interest to locals—always surprising, even to born-and-raised know-it-all SF researchers. http://seepcity.org/